(1) Reland here takes notice, that although our Bibles say little or nothing of these riches of Corah, yet that both the Jews and Mahommedans, as well as Josephus, are full of it.
(2) It appears here, and from the Samaritan Pentateuch, and, in effect, from the psalmist, as also from the Apostolical Constitutions, from Clement's First Epistle to the Corinthians, from Ignatius's Epistle to the Magnesians, and from Eusebius, that Corah was not swallowed up with the Reubenites, but burned with the Levites of his own tribe.See Essay on the Old Testament, p.64, 65.
(3) Concerning these twelve rods of the twelve tribes of Israel, see St.Clement's account, much larger than that in our Bibles, 1Epist.sect.45; as is Josephus's present account in measure larger also.
(4) Grotius, on Numbers 6:18, takes notice that the Greeks also, aswell as the Jews, sometimes consecrated the hair of their heads to the gods.
(5) Josephus here uses this phrase, "when the fortieth year was completed," for when it was begun; as does St.Luke when the day of Pentecost was completed," Acts 2:1.
(6) Whether Miriam died, as Josephus's.Greek copies imply, on the first day of the month, may be doubted, because the Latin copies say it was on the tenth, and so say the Jewish calendars also, as Dr.Bernard assures us.It is said her sepulcher is still extant near Petra, the old capital city of Arabia Petraea, at this day; as also that of Aaron, not far off.
(7) What Josephus here remarks is well worth our remark in this place also; viz.that the Israelites were never to meddle with the Moabites, or Ammonites, or any other people, but those belonging to the land of Canaan, and the countries of Sihon and Og beyond Jordan, as far as the desert and Euphrates, and that therefore no other people had reason to fear the conquests of the Israelites; but that those countries given them by God were their proper and peculiar portion among the nations, and that all who endeavored to dispossess them might ever be justly destroyed by them.
(8) Note that Josephus never supposes Balaam to be an idolater, nor to seek idolatrous enchantments, or to prophesy falsely, but to be no other than an ill-disposed prophet of the true God; and intimates that God's answer the second time, permitting him to go, was ironical, and on design that he deceived (which sort of deception, by way of punishment for former crimes, Josephus never scruples to admit, as ever esteeming such wicked men justly and providentially deceived).But perhaps we had better keep here close to the text which says Numbers 23:20, 21, that God only permitted Balaam to go along with the ambassadors, in case they came and called him, or positively insisted on his going along with them, on any terms; whereas Balaam seems out of impatience to have risen up in the morning, and saddled his ass, and rather to have called them, than staid for their calling him, so zealous does he seem to have been for his reward of divination, his wages of unrighteousness, Numbers 23:7, 17, 18, 37; 2 Peter 2:15; Jude 5, 11; which reward or wages the truly religious prophets of God never required nor accepted, as our Josephus justly takes notice in the cases of Samuel, Antiq.B.V.ch.4.sect.1, and Daniel, Antiq.B.X.ch.11.sect.3.See also Genesis 14:22, 23; 2 Kings 5:15, 16, 26, 27; and Acts 8;17-24.
(9) Whether Josephus had in his copy but two attempts of Balaam in all to curse Israel; or whether by this his twice offering sacrifice, he meant twice besides that first time already mentioned, which yet is not very probable; cannot now be certainly determined.In the mean time, all other copies have three such attempts of Balaam to curse them in the present history.
(10) Such a large and distinct account of this perversion of the Israelites by the Midianite women, of which our other copies give us but short intimations, Numbers 31:16 2 Peter 2:15; Jude 11;Revelation 2:14, is preserved, as Reland informs us, in the Samaritan Chronicle, in Philo, and in other writings of the Jews, as well as here by Josephus.
(11) This grand maxim, That God's people of Israel could never be hurt nor destroyed, but by drawing them to sin against God, appears to be true, by the entire history of that people, both in the Bible and in Josephus; and is often taken notice of in them both.See in particular a most remarkable Ammonite testimony to this purpose, Judith 5:5-21.
(12) What Josephus here puts into the mouths of these Midianite women, who came to entice the Israelites to lewdness and idolatry, viz.that their worship of the God of Israel, in opposition to their idol gods, implied their living according to the holy laws which the true God had given them by Moses, in opposition to those impure laws which were observed under their false gods, well deserves our consideration; and gives us a substantial reason for the great concern that was ever shown under the law of Moses to preserve the Israelites from idolatry, and in the worship of the true God; it being of no less consequence than, Whether God's people should be governed by the holy laws of the true God, or by the impure laws derived from demons, under the pagan idolatry.
(13) The mistake in all Josephus's copies, Greek and Latin which have here fourteen thousand instead of twenty-four thousand, is so flagrant, that our very learned editors, Bernard and Hudson, have put the latter number directly into the text.I choose rather to put it in brackets.